We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Madison Rhoton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Madison, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
When I started filming for other people I was working full time at a clinic & attending college. 100% making videos was a side hustle, & I was determined to finish school. The more I filmed, and the more i shared these films the more inquiries I received. It got to the point where I was asking a lot of work off to get to more & more events. My full time job took a turn for the worst & I had to start considering what I was going to do next to simply provide for my family. So I set the goal to just make enough money filmmaking to cover the bills or match the paycheck I was getting from my employer. I left my full time job & made the jump to go full time with filmmaking. It was one of the scariest things I had ever done leaving a steady paycheck to become self employed full time. But as soon as I dived in & committed to my business, my inquiries exploded & I reached so many new clients. At the end of the year, I doubled my employers income. So the next year I set the goal to make as much as I would have if I had graduated college & worked in my field of study. I doubled that too. This all happened over the span of 5-6 years. My best advice to someone starting out in the industry is to dive in now. If I could go back I wouldn’t have wasted so much time listening to the voices telling me to have a traditional job or traditional schooling experience. I felt like I had to so I persistently tried to juggle three things at once. Just vomit to once thing, find your niche, & put 100% into it. If you want something bad enough it will happen for you. There’s so much education out there (mentors to pay, or free information on YouTube.) you just have to put in the work! I didn’t start out with top notch equipment or a mentor. I just started & slowly built my skills, equipment & clientele. I truly believe anyone can build a successful business if they work hard!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My name is Madison Rhoton & im a filmmaker! I specialize in wedding & elopement films & more recently have begun offering family & baby sessions for those local to Utah. I grew up documenting everything on my digital point & shoot canon & that slowly evolved into creating videos about my life. in highschool social media began to blow up so I shared a lot of my sun projects I worked on for myself. I would make videos for school, for my friends, for me & my boyfriend or my family. A lot of my peers hyped up my films & eventually that led to my first inquiries to document their own lives as friends & classmates began getting married or having babies. This of course led to more videos & more inquiries over again so I decided to make a business out of it as a side hustle to get me & my husband through school. In 2019 i left my job, wrapped up my associate degree & dived head first into the wedding industry.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I’m a creative, & I love business. I think it is so fun to meet people, teach them what i know, whether there other creatives or couples planning their event! I love working with other vendors, seeing someone’s vision come to life. I love organizing & scheduling & breaking down wedding timelines to make the experience as easy & seamless as possible. & I know that is what had helped me find the most success in the industry. Is simply being flexible & professional before making a beautiful film for my clients. I truly believe the experience can make or break it for a client & i want my clients to not only have a beautiful film, but have a truly wonderful experience. So when they look back & watch their film they really feel it.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
The biggest milestone in turning my side hustle into a full time job was finally making the leap to quit my day job. That changed everything for me. I freed up the time I spent at my day job & devoted those hours to scaling my business. One of the best things I did when going full time was becoming friends with other vendors in the industry, being flexible & helpful & an easy vendor to work with for both my clients & other vendors. I get a large portion of my inquiries from other vendors & past clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.madisonrhotonvideo.com
- Instagram: @madstuhh
- Facebook: Madison Rhoton Video
Image Credits
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